A selection of modern anarchist writings by women

A collection of writings by women anarchists who were or are members
of the Workers Solidarity Movement

Why half the world's children go
to bed hungry [1991]
It's hard to know how any one can consider capitalism a viable system
when looking at the situation of the less developed countries. A
recent UN report estimates that 30 million people face starvation.
Yet EC beef, butter and wine mountains rot in European warehouses,
farmers are ploughing crops back into the land, in US corn belt
fields of wheat are burnt.

Abortion:
It's every Womans Right to Choose
[1992]Anarchists believe that every woman has the right to choose an
abortion when faced with a crisis pregnancy irrespective of the
reasons for the abortion. At least 4,000 Irish women have abortions
in England every year at present.

Equality for some women?
[1992]
It isn't sexism that holds us in the worse paid jobs but rather the
economic reality of the capitalism system. To survive in the market
place any company has to be competitive, to maximise profits. In
todays society, creches and child-care are a luxury that the profit
motive can rarely afford.

The not very 'natural' oppression
of women [1992]
In the majority of societies half our species (women) has been held
in an inferior position to the other half (men). Why is this the
case? The answer to this question should explain two things. It
should explain why today with all our equal rights legislation women
are still second class citizens, and secondly it should indicate the
mechanisms and tactics we have to use to achieve womens' liberation.

Sex, Class and the Queen of
England [1992]
Violence and discrimination against women are still very real. Large
numbers of women want to fight back. Aileen O'Carroll looks at some
of the issues. Can women of all classes share a common goal? Should
women organise separately? Is there a connection between fighting
sexism and fighting capitalism?

Abortion vote [1992]
We are being faced with three separate, and each in their own way
highly insulting, referenda. These are on the right to Travel, the
right to Information and on the right to Abortion in certain very
restricted circumstances. Anarchists will be voting Yes to Travel,
Yes to Information and No to the so called '"pro-life"' wording.

Famine in Somalia [1992]
THE FAMINE in Somalia has once again focussed attention on the
problems of the less developed countries. Much of the response to the
crisis is a short term one in the form of food aid. However in order
to understand the causes of this and other famines in Africa it is
necessary to race back the roots of the problem to colonisation and
imperialism.

Anti-abortionists
told to SPUC OFF! [1993]}Where previously the church was an almost unquestioned
authority on moral issues in Ireland, now the positions many Irish
people hold on social issues are in direct conflict with the church.
The most recent example of this were the abortion referenda held on
November 26th, 1992.

Review: Anarchism by Daniel
Guerin [1993]
This book is an easy reading introduction to the main ideas in
anarchist thought and the events that have helped to form them.

Bigots send for sherrif
[1993]
THE FIGHT between SPUC and the student unions over the provision of
abortion information has entered a new phase. SPUC's solicitors, are
now seeking costs from the student unions for the earlier stages of
the case.

The Myth of the Student
Radical [1993]
There is a commonly held idea that universities are some sort of "red
nucleus", a hotbed of activism and socialism. The fact is that
students come from many different backgrounds and classes, although
mainly 'middle' and upper class. There is no underlying political or
economic interest that unites or could unite all students.

New law aids pimps and protection
rackets [1993]
Tagged on to the end of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993
were further restrictions on prostitution. Under the new act,
prostitutes are now liable to fines of up to £1,000 and up to
six months in prison.

Freedom & Revolution
[1994]
Does the end justify the means? Many on the left belive so. Aileen
O'Carroll argues that the means used play a part in creating the
end that is achieved. The best example of this is the Russian
Revolution of 1917.

Burn that witch [1994]
'Not Your Girl', a women's radio programme was taken off the air at
Anna Livia FM by an all-male Board of Directors just before
Christmas.

Waiting on the housing list
[1994]
3,500 households are waiting for housing in Dublin. The average wait
for a local authority house in Dublin is now two years and rising.

Loud and Proud [1994]
The coming into effect last June of legislation which decriminalised
certain male homosexual acts was the subject of much celebration in
the gay community. For many it was felt the battle for equality had
been won.

The heroin menace [1994]
Dublin is experiencing a heroin epidemic similar to the in the late
1970s. That epidemic left hundreds of young people hooked on heroin
and dozens of them have since died of AIDS and AIDS related diseases.
Some big criminals made fortunes out of it

Travellers fighting back
[1995]Patricia McCarthy examines the history of Irish Travellers'
struggle for civil rights and ethnic recognition. Their struggles
have much in common with those of Indigenous people worldwide and
with the struggles of Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals and
also with the struggles of Gypsies, Travellers and nomads against
racism and oppression.

No room at the refuge
[1995]
An Eastern Health Board report published in December 1994, shows a
huge increase in the number of homeless people put up in Bed and
Breakfast accommodation by the Health Board.

Anarchism and Religion
[1995]
The popular stereotype of anarchists' relationship to religion is
that we are all priest-killers and church-burners. This is, as is
usually the case with mainstream representations of anarchism, almost
completely false.

Who are the Travellers?
[1995]
Travellers are a distinct "ethnic" group with their own traditions
and customs. Very few people want to accept that they are. This
reflects the widespread racism towards them, a racism which insists
on seeing them as "failed settled people".

Drug Crisis: Dublin Communities
Organise [1996]
The heroin epidemic in Dublin is causing major problems for addicts
and for the communities where they live. Oddly enough you would not
get any inkling of this crisis from the bourgeois press. That is
because the epidemic and its effects are confined to the inner city
and the working class suburbs like Ballymun, Tallaght, Clondalkin and
Blanchardstown.

Emma Goldman [1996]
A brief look at the life and writings of Emma Goldman

Church sells off The Secret
Garden [1997]
There has been a Community Training Workshop in the grounds of All
Hallows College for the past fifteen years. The workshop takes most
of its trainees from the prisons and the probation service. Their
landlord (the Catholic Church) has sold the land the workshop is on
to a private housing developer

Organising &
Agitating [1998]
'Don't mourn, Organise', Joe Hill said before he was executed by the
US state. It's nothing more than common sense to say that two heads
are better than one. The more people working together, the more that
can be achieved. But organisation is more than the coming together of
kindred spirits.

Dublin Dockland to be
developed - Who will benefit? [1998]
The Dublin Docklands, from Ringsend to Sheriff Street, are starting a
very major re-development which will take place over the next fifteen
years. Already the property developers are in the area buying up the
land, a lot of which is owned by state and semi-state companies.

Mujeres Libres
[1998]
Mujeres Libres (Free Women) were a group of women anarchists who
organised and fought both for women's liberation and an anarchist
revolution during the Spanish Civil War. The work they did is truly
inspirational.

Louise Michel [1998]
Louise Michel was a French anarchist women who fought in the Paris
commune and after escaping the death penalty spent the rest of her
live in the anarchist movement.

The Platform: What's in
it? [1998]
So you want to change the world? What next? Unsurprisingly this
simple question has provoked much discussion among anarchists.
Aileen O'Carroll looks at the answer provided by some
Russians.

Is This As Good As It
Gets? [1999]Lets not talk about the Celtic Tiger bringing prosperity. Pay
levels have stayed the same, tax rates have increased and there has
been the massive increase in property prices throughout the country.
A third of todays wage earners can no longer afford to buy a home of
their own.

Free Women of Spain [1999]Conditions for the vast majority of people in Spain in the
1920s and 1930s were appalling. For women they were especially bad.
In the two years before the 1936 revolution, two groups of anarchist
women in Barcelona and Madrid had begun organising.

Beyond the 'Days of action
against global capital' [2000]
For decades, the organisations that manage capitalism have met to
divvy up the world among themselves. For the first time, their role
as dealers of poverty and misery has been exposed by thousands of
angry protesters.

Anarchists and the right to
choose [2000]
We envisage an anarchist society as a society where people are free
to make choices about their own lives. For women, this includes the
decision whether or not to become pregnant, whether or not to remain
pregnant, whether or not to have children.

Sex, Class and
womens oppression
A 14 page pamphlet of anarchist articles against the
oppression of women. It's a PDF file so you can print it out
complete with graphics and distribute it locally!

Review: The Corrosion of
Character [2001]This is a thoughtful and thought provoking book.
It describes a section of society that is affluent and yet hollow and
empty. Anyone working in a Celtic Tiger computer company will find
much to think about in this book.

Attempt to curtail protest
defeated [2001]
If Dublin Corporation had their way, there would be no more large
marches in the city centre. In April they tried to introduce new
by-laws which would prevent protests occurring in O'Connell Street.

What did you hear about
Genoa? [2001]
Review of TV coverage of the Genoa G8 protests by an Irish anarchist
looking at the assumptions made by the media coverage.

Abortion rights -
It's up to you and me [2002]
Media 'experts' and commentators have been saying that the
progressive changes that occurred around contraception, divorce and
equal age of consent for gays in Ireland in the early to mid-nineties
were a natural result of modernisation of Irish society and occurred
because liberal politicians decided to push for these changes. We are
supposed to feel that only our rulers can change things, that the
rest of us are pretty powerless. Well, it's not true.

Women - still carrying the
baby at work and home!! [2002]
Over the last 100 years, there is no doubt that women's situation in
most first world countries has improved dramatically. Now that we've
reached the 21st century, many would say that sexist inequality no
longer really exists. However, if we take a brief look at just one
aspect of our lives - work - it is clear that there is still a lot
left to fight for.

Low pay = Jobs? A global
lie [2002]
A low paid job is better than no job. At least that's what those
supporting corporate Globalisation argue. Big companies like Nike and
Gap pay workers badly, expect them to work long hours in appalling
conditions, buy off or exclude their trade-unions but at least at the
end of the day, these workers take home a pay packet.

Politics of the car
[2002]
With growing traffic jams, longer journeys to work and increasing
road deaths Aileen O'Carroll makes a contribution to the debate about
how to get out of this mess.

Chile: 30 years of 9-11
protests [2003]
Throughout the country Chileans commemorate September 11th 1973, the
day of Pinochets bloody (US facilitated) coup. This is a longer
version of the article than the one that appears in the printed/PDF
editions

Repressing Abortion in
Ireland by Mary Favier (Doctors For Choice) [2003]
The Republic of Ireland has one of the most draconian abortion laws
in the world. At present abortion may only be performed where
continuation of pregnancy poses a 'real and substantial' risk to a
pregnant woman's life - about 5 cases per year of 50,000 pregnancies

Industrial Collectivisation during
the Spanish Revolution by Deirdre Hogan [2003]
Within hours of the start of the Spanish revolution workers had
seized control of 3000 enterprises. This included all public
transportation services, shipping, electric and power companies, gas
and water works, engineering and automobile assembly plants, mines,
cement works, textile mills and paper factories, electrical and
chemical concerns, glass bottle factories and perfumeries, food
processing plants and breweries.

Anarcha-Feminism [2004]
An important principle of anarchism and one that more than any other
differentiates it from other types of socialism is its emphasis on
freedom and non-hierarchical social relations. Central to anarchism
is the rejection of any power hierarchy between men and women.

International Women's Day
[2004]
International Women's Day is an expressly political day. In 1907
women sweatshop workers marched in New York and thus the first
International Women's day was born.

Hijab: lifting the veil
[2004]
Standing up to religious oppression or state racism? Ultimately we
believe that people should have the freedom to dress whatever way
they like. This means freedom from state interference and freedom
from religious interference in how one should dress.

Abortion Rights Still
Denied [2004]In 1861, abortion was made a criminal offence in Ireland. One
hundred and forty three years later the Irish government continues to
deny women their right to choice.

Ireland's 'Traditional' Racism
Remains
An interview with Mrs Ellen Mongan, a Traveller with seven children.
It's 2004 and close to 1,000 Traveller famlies are still living on
the roadside without access to basic facilities-water, sanitation or
electricity

We Don't Want Your Vote
Most, if not all, of the left wing political parties in Ireland are
standing candidates in the up-coming local elections. Members of the
Workers Solidarity Movement will not be joining them

International
Women's Day [2005]
International Women's Day (IWD) is on 8th March and is an inherently
political event that started in 1910 when Clara Zetkin proposed that
it be celebrated every year around the world at the Second
International Conference of Socialist Women.

Sex, Class and
womens oppression
A 14 page pamphlet of anarchist articles against the
oppression of women. It's a PDF file so you can print it out
complete with graphics and distribute it locally!

Text of talks

Feminism & Anarchism
[1992]
Basically we view feminism as a progressive movement but one which is
capable of taking up confused and sometimes reactionary demands
because it fails to locate the cause of womens oppression in the
class nature of capitalist society.

Feminism & Anarchism again
[1993]
I am going to look at the different traditions of political thought
that have developed to critique this vision of women's role in
society. There are broadly speaking, four theories; Liberal Feminism,
Traditional Marxism, Radical Feminism and Socialist Feminism.

Why women are not yet
liberated? [1992]
A lot of the institutionalised oppression that women such as my
mother would have argued against in the 1960's has disappeared. Yet
it is also obvious that women are still far from equal. For the
majority of us, our right to choose the way of life we wish to lead
is as limited as it has always been.

The Left and the Fight for
Women's Liberation [1993]
The struggle for women's liberation has generally been bound up with
other, wider social and economic changes. The first written evidence
of equality with men being put seriously on the agenda was during the
reformation starting in the sixteenth century.

Abortion in Ireland - Historical
Perspective and current campaigning [1992]
Abortion was totally illegal in Ireland under all circumstances until
the Supreme Court judgement in the "X" case earlier this year, which
seems to permit abortion in the extremely limited case of threatened
suicide by the mother. The 1861 Offences against the Persons Act
states that any person "performing, attempting and or assisting in an
abortion is liable to penal servitude for life".

Emma Goldman [1993]
What initially drew Goldman to anarchism was the outcry that followed
the Haymarket Square tragedy in 1886 in Chicago. Emma Goldman had
followed the event intensely and on the day of the hanging she
decided to become a revolutionary.

The Paris Commune [1993]
The commune was formally installed in the Hotel de Ville two days
later in the glorious spring sunshine of Tuesday, 28 March. The
national Guard battalions assembled, the names of the newly elected
members were read out , as, wearing red, they lined up on the steps
of the Hotel de Ville under a canopy surmounted by a bust to the
republic. On high the red flag was flying as it had done ever since
18 March and guns saluted the proclamation of the Paris Commune

Racism [1994]
Any discussion of Racism needs to examine the roots of Racism in
order to understand it and to struggle against it effectively. There
are basically 3 explanations for the existence of racism.

Racism and Irish travellers
[1995]
Irish travellers are an ethnic minority who are culturally separate
to the rest of Irish society. Because they are white and most of the
are Irish, people reject the idea that the concept of racism applies
to them. However an examination of policies and practises operated by
the state and by non-state bodies clearly shows that it is racism
that defines these policies and practises.

Mujeres Libres [1995]
The women who founded Mujeres Libres were all active within the
anarchist movement, in the CNT or in the FIJL, however as women they
were in a minority and found it difficult to incorporate more women
into the activist core, either because of the sexism of the men, or
because of the reluctance of the women or a combination of both

The Limerick soviet of 1919
[1994]
The first problem facing the strikers was how to feed Limericks
38,000 inhabitants. The committee sat in secession all of monday
organising food distrubution. The committee was divided into two
sections, one to recieve food and one to deliver it. Hundreds of
special permits were issued allowing shops to open

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